DISCLAIMER: This email contains campaign materials provided solely by a candidate for elected office within SEIU Local 503. Local 503 is distributing this campaign material solely because of its obligation under federal labor law to do so. See below for full disclaimer.
VOTE AVERY HORTON FOR LOCAL 503 PRESIDENT!!

VOTE THE H.O.T. TICKET!!

Dear SEIU LOCAL 503 Brothers and Sisters:

YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO RIGHT THE WRONG OF BEING KEPT IN THE DARK!

Do you know that you have the choice to direct part of your monthly dues to go to a Union Scholarship fund for members or if you do nothing (like most members have done for many years) then your dues goes to political action you may not support?

What do you call a leader who does nothing to correct a wrong when made aware of it?

As a member of SEIU LOCAL 503, I, AVERY HORTON, want to be taken care of by being informed rather than being taken advantage of by being kept ignorant. Don't you?

There are two types of lies that have been used on members:

Lies of commission;
Lies of omission.

Lies of commission occur when the lying party knows they are lying. Lies of omission occur when the lying party leaves out information that would be beneficial to the listener.

My opponent has allowed both lies to occur and to continue to occur on his watch!

On June 19, 2017, over a year ago, I sent the following to my opponent, Demarest:

The current Union Application is deceptive in the fact it does not give people all of their options.

There should be FULL DISCLOSURE on the application where and how the money is applied and the option to select either the scholarship fund or the political contribution.

As it stands, new members are not fully informed of their options. The argument that this information is in the Bylaws does not hold water because the Bylaws are not presented during the application process.

I trust you will make the appropriate corrections to the membership application as soon as possible.

Here is how my opponent replied:

Dear Avery,

Our membership application meets all applicable legal requirements.

Steven Demarest
President, SEIU 503, A Sanctuary Union

Here is my reply back which never received a response:

Steve:

I was not questioning the legalities. Don't change the topic.

Is it ETHICAL that new members are NOT informed of their options regarding their union dues allocations? Of course it isn't!!

Is this FULL DISCLOSURE? Of course it isn't!!

This is a LIE OF OMISSION that continues to this day by my opponent who is the current union president!! This lie hurts members because they do not know of their options. Do you have a child attending college that may have benefited from a union scholarship?

It's time for new leadership. VOTE AVERY HORTON FOR UNION PRESIDENT.

But there is more...

I had made my opponent aware, on many occasions, that staff are telling members that dues are not used for politics. After the third time I heard this lie repeated, I filed a formal complaint against my opponent for allowing this lie to continue being told. Here is part of his response to the complaint:

“In any event, as Union President, I am not charged with educating members and/or staff about the use of Union dues for political purposes...”

Allowing this to continue is a LIE OF COMMISSION!! My opponent just doesn't care about members or the disclosing the whole truth at all. Where does the buck stop?

Right before the Janus decision, my opponent sent out a letter to members that contained the following statement:

"Thank you for joining us in demanding transparency and accountability from out-of-state corporations doing business in Oregon. … " - Steve Demarest, President, SEIU 503

What about demanding transparency and accountability from our Union? Not to mention how much dues money was wasted, by my opponent, on this campaign that 503 has abandoned!

Instead, my opponent could have done something to give members a reason to remain in the union after the Janus decision instead of leaving the union. Since Janus, 503 has lost over 20% of membership. Over 65,000 to under 50,000 members!

It should be obvious my opponent can NOT be trusted.

You have the opportunity to right this wrong by voting my opponent out of office and voting in H.O.T. NEW LEADERSHIP.

Together, we can make 503 H.O.T. (Honest, Open, Transparent) and a model for 21st century unions with Stellar Membership Service.

A VOTE FOR AVERY HORTON UNION PRESIDENT IS A VOTE FOR NEW LEADERSHIP!!

When I read the following salaries below, it made me sick. Why are members' dues paying for such lavish salaries and benefit packages to all these people to do what exactly? Wouldn't you like a cushy job like these folks have?

Evidently, this is normal for my opponent, the current union president, to give his cronies cushy jobs like this. Not on my watch. I will have a lean mean fighting machine in place to work for members and not members working for cronies like we have now.

DID YOU KNOW THAT YOUR DUES PAY FOR THESE OVERPAID JOBS LISTED BELOW? This is the result of poor leadership by my opponent, current union president, Demarest. Doesn't this make you sick to your stomach? Calling this shocking is putting it mildly!

Here are some of the SEIU LOCAL 503 Organizers and their 2017 salaries:

(The above data is available in the 2017 SEIU LOCAL 503 LM-2 REPORT filed with the U.S. Dept of Labor. This information is a matter of Public Record.)

The following is taken from a SEIU LOCAL 503 recruitment flier:

"Our SEIU 503 staff has a passion to work hard, and enjoys top notch benefits including comprehensive fully paid health, dental and vision benefits for employee and eligible dependents, domestic partner benefits, generous holiday and vacation policies, a monthly car and cell phone allowance, and a 15% employer paid defined contribution 401K.
Compensation range is based on experience, $48,600-$78,200 annually."

As a dues paying member, wouldn't it be nice to have one of these jobs with lavish salaries and top notch benefits?

Total Salaries and Benefits $13,556,972

Total Dues and Agency Fees $30,368,883

Salaries and Benefits for SEIU LOCAL 503 paid leadership and staff amount to over 44% of dues and agency fees!

Could this be why SEIU LOCAL 503 leadership refuses to put the LM-2 REPORT (similar to your Federal Income Tax Form 1040 explaining where you got your money and how you spent it) on their website and refuses to have printed copies available at meetings? It's time 503 Leadership shows the SEIU LOCAL 503 LM-2 Report to members like all politicians must do.

Why are hard working members paying for a privileged few to have cushy jobs with awesome benefits and pay most members don't have? What's wrong with this picture? It's called BAD LEADERSHIP!!

Wouldn't you like to apply to one of these jobs reserved for the chosen few? Not on my watch! These jobs won't exist at that pay level. I could hire a room full of licensed attorneys at that rate of pay! What a total waste of member's dues here and I'm just getting started...

Shouldn't members vote on staff salaries?

Isn't it time you have leaders that will inform you of what your dues are really paying for?

Well, you can now!

Together, we can make 503 H.O.T. (Honest, Open,
Transparent) and a model for 21st century unions with
Stellar Membership Service.

A VOTE FOR AVERY HORTON UNION PRESIDENT IS A VOTE FOR NEW LEADERSHIP!!

During the 2016 election, SEIU vainly spent millions of dollars trying to elect Hillary Clinton. Weeks after Clinton lost, SEIU Texas declared bankruptcy, and SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry announced the union must plan for a 30 percent cut in SEIU International’s budget by the start of this year. SEIU Texas filed for bankruptcy because it had lost a lawsuit and been ordered to pay $7.8 million to Professional Janitorial Services. The union had been angry that the company’s president refused to waive a secret-ballot unionization election so it had unfairly and maliciously attacked the company causing it to lose clients. Last summer, SEIU International bailed out SEIU Texas and confidentially settled the case. Elsewhere, due to allegations of sexual harassment, three SEIU employees have been fired, two resigned, and another was suspended over the past year. Of these six employees, two were SEIU executive vice presidents, another was the national organizing director for SEIU’s Fight for $15 campaign, and two more were leaders of Fight for $15 campaigns in Chicago and Detroit.

Well said, Sonny, but sadly there still appears to be a large number of Stalinists working as staffers and officers for groups like SEIU and AFSCME. With a little luck, current union members will soon demand new leaders so they get the better representation they deserve.

A former SEIU organizer told the Washington Free Beacon that the allegations against Courtney did not surprise her, saying the union's "HR processes for investigating sexual harassment [represent] a culture of protecting the organization."

NOTE: With a little luck, we'll soon be reading an article about a lawsuit for Maine's countless public servants whom deserve refunds from the unions/PACs like MSEA-SEIU Local 1989 and the Maine AFSCME. It will be interesting to find out how many millions of dollars all of those refunds will add up to when it's all done... surely quite a few and the national totals will be simply staggering. :-) Yahoo!!!

Wow, Belcher looks quite a bit like Bernie Sanders now... must be that Vermont water he's drinking. He really looks like he has aged about 50 years since quitting at MSEA-SEIU Local 1989... or did he get fired?

Well, they did pay him about $100,000 per year for that gig... so I guess he did line his walletat-members'-expense
as one accomplishment. I wonder how many members actually believe he was worth that kind of money.

The biggest state employees' union lost fees from 2,000 workers. The Maine State Employees' Association, which represents more than 13,000 workers, was hit hard by the new contract. Before the change, workers either paid dues to the union or the mandatory fee. Mary Anne Turowski, the union’s director of politics and legislation, said 2,000 feepayers are now gone…

Of course that leaves several thousands who will receive piss poor representation in grievances.
Most of which relate to things LePage didn't do in 8 years . like revamp the pers. system etc. and get rid pf the inept mangers etc..
Of course unions would not have gone along with that either since they needed LePage just like he needed them to be bad guys.

He was just able to hold off long enough to dangle the 6 % carrot and neuter MSEA . The court ruling was just fluff.

There were no heros in this mess for years ,just some individual scores to be settled !

That's a great idea, Sonny, and I really hope that happens within the next year. Our public servants deserve to have a true labor union representing them if desired, not a fake one as it appears the Maine SEIU has become.

Members deserve better, but they need to take action else nothing will change.

Interestingly I have been posting from day one, page one, in this thread and its' predecessor and never, can I remember,
MF advocating for no union. Of course we have waited for Matt to explain his vast experience with being a member of a labor union.

Matt, you just don't get it... perhaps some day you'll stop drinking their Kool-Aid and discover reality.
FYI, there's a HUGE difference between a true labor union (like what we had in the good old days) versus a labor organization that mostly acts like a political action committee.